Kidney scam accused identifies corrupt cop

New Delhi, Feb 18 (IANS) Key kidney scam accused Upendra Aggarwal Monday confirmed the identity of an arrested Delhi Police official as one of the policemen who had let off him and kingpin Amit Kumar after taking money. In the same case, Jeewan Kumar, the brother of Amit Kumar, was sent to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) custody till Feb 29.

The CBI took Upendra to Delhi’s high security Tihar Jail and brought him face to face with Ravinder Kumar Singh, the assistant sub-inspector who was arrested last week for allegedly accepting Rs.2 million from Amit Kumar in connivance with six other policemen to let them off.

Upendra was taken secretly inside the jail at around 2.30 p.m., bypassing the media contingent that had gathered around the jail.

Sources inside the jail told IANS that Upendra identified Singh in the presence of a magistrate, CBI officials and sleuths of the Delhi Police Crime Brach.

The identification will help the probe agencies convict Singh and the other six policemen - Devender Singh, Vijay Bahadur, Naresh Kumar, Kaleem Beg, Surender Rathi and Rakesh Kumar - who are absconding.

The policemen are facing charges of extortion and threatening a person in order to extort money.

Confirming that a test identification parade (TIP) was conducted inside the jail, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Madhup Tewari said: “Since the TIP results were positive, raids are on to nab the absconding policemen.”

Meanwhile, Jeewan Kumar was sent to CBI custody after he was produced before Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjeev Jain. The court asked the CBI to produce him on Feb 29, the next date of hearing.

Jeewan, a graduate in ayurvedic medicine who had evaded the police for over two weeks, was arrested by the CBI from Delhi’s Lodhi Garden on Sunday after his call details were monitored and a technical surveillance kept on him.

The CBI, pressing the demand for his remand, told the court that an arrest warrant issued by Gurgaon police was pending against him and he needed to be thoroughly interrogated.

The agency told the court that he was to be confronted with the others arrested in the scam to ascertain the identity of the doctors involved.

The multi-billion rupee racket was unearthed Jan 24 after police swooped on a private house and a guesthouse in Gurgaon from where the scam was being run allegedly by Amit Kumar alias Santosh Rameshwar Raut.

Upendra Aggarwal had been arrested, while Amit Kumar, Jeewan and Saraj Kumar managed to escape after a tip-off.

Amit Kumar was arrested from a Nepal hotel earlier this month and handed over to India. Saraj surrendered before a court in Gurgaon. Both have claimed their innocence.

CBI director Vijay Shanker told the media that they are open to take up the investigations if approached by other states (Uttar Pradesh and Delhi).

The CBI took over the probe after the Haryana government sent a formal request. The kidney racket depended on removing the kidneys of poor people through coercion and providing them to clients in Britain, the US, Turkey, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.